The Whore of Babylon

Chapter 28 | part 3

With Mari's help, she arranged a meeting.

Samsu was already suspicious and paranoid – she dared not risk meeting Ashan out in the open, or even when any of the servants might notice. Instead, the meeting was arranged for the dead of night, out on her roof terrace.

As she rose from her bed and slipped on a hooded woollen cloak, Eliana's heart pounded so loudly that she was sure it would give her away. Surely half the palace must be able to hear it.

She went to the agreed meeting place and waited, pulling the cloak tightly around herself against the chill. Tilting her head back, she gazed up at Suen and his children, illuminating the clear night sky. She wondered what it would be like to be a star – so high up, so far removed from everything, able to see the whole world at once...

A quiet cough behind her interrupted her thoughts. Her heart began hammering again as she turned slowly.

There he stood, just out of reach, his features silvered by the moonlight.

She left the hood up, keeping her face in shadow, the better to hide her expression. She was sure that her eyes would betray her longing for him.

'I thought you swore you would never see me alone again,' murmured Ashan.

'I did,' she said, smiling into the darkness, 'but desperate times call for desperate measures.'

'Are you so desperate?'

'You know I am – he endangers the girls, he suspects that Eshu and Nisala are not his children, he plans to sacrifice Sarri... he is too dangerous. If we do not do something, he will destroy us all.'

Ashan nodded, 'You're right. I swore many, many years ago a blood oath to protect and serve a man – that man is long gone, and a lunatic has taken his place.'

'He was always mad,' grimaced Eliana.

'No, not mad. Cold, yes, calculating and cruel, certainly; but never mad. There was always some logic to his actions in the past, however ruthless he was.'

'Well, that's not the case anymore,' she said, thinking of the demeaning ride through the city.

'No,' he agreed. 'It's just a matter of time before he turns on us all, one by one. He seems to slip deeper into insanity every day. He has to die, before he kills us.'

Eliana hesitated. The idea of taking a life grated against everything she had ever been taught. The Brute's execution had been different – that was a punishment according to the law, decreed by the king. This... it was cold-blooded murder.

'Does – does he have to die?' she asked, tentatively. 'Could we perhaps just lock him away somewhere?'

'After all he has done to you, you would spare him?'

'It's just... I will have to live with his blood on my hands for the rest of my life. I don't know if I can.'

'Your life will be a lot shorter if you don't,' he said harshly. 'Eliana, see sense. This is not the time to be squeamish. Eshu's succession will have no legal standing if Samsu still lives, and former kings always become figureheads for rebellion, sooner or later. People become dissatisfied under the new regime and start to imagine that things were better under the old – it's an invitation for chaos.'

'Perhaps he would abdicate?' she suggested, hope clear in her voice. 'His grandfather abdicated, didn't he?'

Ashan laughed aloud, 'his grandfather was a weak old man who turned the throne over to a son who would have taken it by force had he not abdicated. Samsu would never abdicate of his own free will – he'd rather die. You know that as well as I do.'